“Do not shrink yourself to fit the world; grow into your own edges.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I have spent the last seven years deconstructing the first 23 years of my life, carefully sorting through the religious ideology and childhood trauma just to find the person I am, realizing that the people who contributed to my hurt were just as broken.

An angry cycle, but one I chose not to be a part of anymore.

And the world didn’t pack up and heal with me.

So now?

I sit here face to face with my femininity. A term that was once a definition for me is now just a word you’d use to describe someone you pass by on the street. Yet here I am taking the word apart and putting it back together, my heart molding to its muddled shape.

It’s funny because when I look back at my younger self, my insides begin to curl up with that feeling of internal cringe, pining after people who didn’t even know how to do their own laundry. I felt just as bad for them because they felt the same way about a girl who couldn’t even walk ten feet without crying.

The misery my misery caused.

For most of my life, I thought that was just the plight of womanhood. Misery, pain, the feeling that you’re never quite right.

A wild hair that needed to be plucked to be reasonable again.

And how do you pluck said wild hair? I was always told a man. As a girl, that confused me because the first man I really came to know in my life broke my heart time and time again. I saw his own heartbreak dissolve into bitterness, and he became domineering, mean, and vindictive. The other men outside of him were just as callous. Then in my teen years, I went into this phase where, for some reason, I was crazy about them. I had it in my head that I needed to portray this perfect example of a woman, or what I was told was a good example, so I could get married and have kids. And that’s it. That’s all my life would become.

So what did I do?

I did what I thought was normal. I had a kid, I got married, and I tried to be this perfect example of a wife and of a woman.

But at the end of the day, we were just two broken people doing the things that we were just young. And youth is a heavy weight for not knowing much.

Then I grew up, and now in a much different time, in a very different marriage, I find myself reflecting. Romance novels would have me say that before him I was broken, and to some extent that was true, but before him I was still growing, evolving, learning, changing, and discovering myself. When my husband came into my life, he became a part of that growth, careful to never overtake it.

We were just two people coming together to meet each other where we were at, never trying to fix each other, but instead helping the other mold the broken pieces into the shapes of our individual selves.

A team and individuals. One never taking over the other, playing to our strengths and humbled in our faults. True partners. Something in this healed me.

In between the spaces of my heart are the people I collected along the way. Really, I think they collected me. At the very least, we found each other. A made family, some blood, but mostly found love.

So now, as I sit here, dwelling upon my femininity, I begin to mold her into my version, this time on my own terms. Age in womanhood is freeing, but I hope my daughter finds her freedom in it now, and that my son never has to trade his tenderness in order to exist.

So tell me, how do you define yourself?

With happy thoughts,

Shay

Please check out my Community Gardens page!

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